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"Absolutely. We're already taking steps to gain that IOC recognition," Goodell said. "We have, I think, 64 countries that are playing American football now, and that's one of the requirements. That's been growing dramatically -- I think it was 40 just five years ago."Naturally, no one in the NFL minds that this increase in worldwide football playing equates to many more people around the world wanting to purchase team-related merchandise. But the game truly is international (if you want a great example, see the podcast that friend of the blog Ric Silvestre does at NFLemPT.com, a Portuguese site dedicated to the NFL) and Goodell would love for that to be reflected in the international games.Plus, look at what playing in the Olympics did for the NBA. Once pros started going to the games in 1992 with the Dream Team, the international popularity of the NBA absolutely exploded. And for Goodell and the NFL, joining the Olympics could certainly be a stepping stone to getting an international franchise in the league.

"Our point is just to keep growing the game," Goodell said. "We're having a tremendous reaction in London and the UK for the game of football, our regular season game over there is sold out again this year, we are seriously contemplating as early as 2013 playing two NFL games next season and I think we'll do that. It's a response to the tremendous fan reaction and the growth of the game. If we can continue to grow the game there and have the fan reaction that we have, there very well may be a franchise in London."

Obviously they'll continue with the UK series, which will be the real impetus for getting a franchise across the pond. But the continued push to get American football in the Olympics (and the laughable dominance of the USA in the sport for the short- and long-term future) will only help, as the NFL's worldwide popularity would grow exponentially.

Im honestly not sure how I feel about it as a fan. With the olympics being only 17 days long, you can't exactly have teams playing every day in multiple heats to narrow down finalists so they'd have to have elimination tournaments before hand. Then you add in players not wanting to get hurt during the offseason for fear of career ending or season ending injuries.

On top of all that, does anyone really think there's any team in the world that could compete with the elite players in the NFL? If you think the dream team in basketball kicks ***, imagine how the best of the best in the NFL would do, I don't care who the competition is. It would be a slaughter of epic proportions.

Goodell talks about other countries playing football, but seriously nobody cares about it to the degree that the US fans do about their teams, and the fans across the pond who follow the NFL.

For that matter, if you put the NFL in then you can make a case for putting in the WFA too.

I don't like the idea of the dream team in basketball either for just that reason, it's so lopsided it's not even fun to watch. Atleast in soccer the women and men have competitive games no matter how good they are.

In football it would be a complete blowout every game and if someone got hurt, oh man would the media circus be all over that. I wonder if the CBA has any Olympic provisions in it..lol.

Now if they used college players for example, that could be at least a bit more competitive. Even though though the talent coming out in the draft every year of great players, wow...

Goodell talks about other countries playing football, but seriously nobody cares about it to the degree that the US fans do about their teams, and the fans across the pond who follow the NFL.

For that matter, if you put the NFL in then you can make a case for putting in the WFA too.

Although it's true that they don't care as much as we do the idea is to grow into an international sport. Very often we as Americans believe the entire world is between the Atlantic and Pacific and it's simply not the case. It's also a big reason why some don't like us. They joke about our "World Series" or calling the Super Bowl Champs "World Champs".

Rugby is a huge sport around the world but just now starting to grow here. There's no reason why football as we know will not grow across the world. I doubt I'll see it in the Olympics but hopefully my kids will.

"When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself."
-Wayne Dyer